Finding Security and Significance John 10:27-30); Matthew 10:29-30 (Colossians 3:16-24)

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1 1 Finding Security and Significance John 10:27-30); Matthew 10:29-30 (Colossians 3:16-24) My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father s hand. I and My Father are one. (John 10:27-30) Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:29-30) Today I want to share with you from my heart and from what I sense biblically as the heart of God right to where you live in the family. Whether you are a family of one, or two, or three, or many this word is for you. Marriage and family are at the core of who we are here at FBC, and we take seriously what we teach and try to live by example when it comes to marriage and family. There are a lot of jokes and one-liners about marriage. It s probably because as beautiful as marriage is, it s also extremely challenging and can be ugly at times. It was George Burns who said, I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury. Rodney Dangerfield, the man who gets no respect, says, My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met and got married. I read recently about a golden anniversary party that was thrown for a couple. The husband was very moved by the occasion and wanted to tell his wife what he thought of her. She was very hard of hearing, however, and often misunderstood what he said. With many family members and friends gathered around, he toasted her and said, My dear wife, after 50 years I ve found you tried and true! Everyone clapped for them, but his wife was a little irritated and asked, What did you say? So he repeated it again: AFTER 50 YEARS, I VE FOUND YOU TRIED AND TRUE! The wife was now visibly upset and shouted back, Well, let me tell you something - after 50 years I m tired of you, too! Henny Youngman has said, The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret. As we continue in our prayer Heaven Help the Home, it s my prayer that a happy and fulfilling marriage will no longer be a secret, but something that will be both understandable and attainable. Sadly, in our culture today, marriages are under attack. According to some researchers, 5 out of 10 marriages end in conflict and divorce. And, of the five couples that remain together, only 1 out of 10 will achieve intimacy and oneness in their partnership. Family as a whole is under relentless attack. At its core, family is about complex relationships, perhaps the most intricate on the face of the earth. Unfortunately, many of us don t realize this when we say, I do. We may think that the dynamics of a good family just happen, or depend on some mysterious blend of having the right people together. When marriages crumble, we often hear people say that they just must have been wrong for each other. More often than not, being right or wrong for someone depends not on some mysterious compatibility quotient, but on how willing and able we are to meet our spouse s needs. In other words, the real secret may lie in spouses learning how to serve one another. In family, for both the spouses and the children, there are two incredibly deep needs that are best met in the confines of the home. God made the home, and God made people. In His wisdom He made it so that the deepest needs that He instilled within us might be met within His creation of the home. Whether you are the wife or the husband whether you are the parent of the child the most pressing needs that can best be met in the family setting is the need for security and significance. Deep in the heart of all people resides the need to be significant to some other individual or group, and the need to feel safe and secure in that setting.

2 These needs are universal and the best place to have them met is in the home. If you live in an atmosphere where you know you are significant and secure, you are most likely to be well developed and happy. So let me make a couple of propositions. Proposition #1: Our two most basic human needs are for security and significance. We can define security as an awareness of being unconditionally and totally loved. Most folks would equate security with protection and provision, which is true to an extent. But when a person is unconditionally loved, they sense the protection and provision that comes with that feeling. Significance is the realization that I am valuable and that my life is worthwhile. We all need to know we matter to someone. Way back in my younger days, Three Dog Night wrote the hit, One is the Loneliest Number. Indeed, unless God has uniquely called and equipped you otherwise, we live with a need to be in a significant relationship with others. These two needs are so important that if a person lacks either one, he or she is unable to function effectively in most relationships. Security is generally of greater importance to women and significance of greater importance to men, but actually both are essential for every one of us. Proposition #2: Our most basic problem in family in general and marriage in particular is that we look to the wrong sources for our security and significance. I would like to suggest that God never intended a wife to find her ultimate security in her husband, nor for a husband to find his total significance through his relationship with his wife. I know that may sound contradictory to what I said earlier, but stay with me. Children were never meant to look only to Mom and Dad for security and significance. Indeed, that is the first place they are to look, but good parents point them away to another more reliable source. If we aren t supposed to find our foundational security and significance in our partner or parent, where do we find it? Stay with me on this one because your first reaction may be to roll your eyes. You may think my answer is trite. Here it is: your primary needs for security and significance can only be met through a relationship with Jesus Christ. I know! Sounds just like a preacher! Right? But hang with me a moment. Why do you think the Bible says so much about God s unconditional love for His people, if it s not to build into us a sense of security? We are loved by a love that is freely given, that cannot be earned, and can therefore never be lost. Holy Spirit wants to minister security to your heart right now. Listen to this verse. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father s hand. I and My Father are one. (John 10:27-30) That is one of so many verses wherein Holy Spirit promises security to those who know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. If we look to God to meet our basic need for security, then we will not be vulnerable to the false securities offered by this world, because God will never fail us. Deuteronomy 33:27 is just one verse that helps us be secure in our relationship with God: The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. Why do you think the Bible says so much about the fact that God is our Creator and Sustainer, that He is active in our lives from the very moment of conception, that He has gifted us, that He has plans for us, and that He desires to use us in various ministries, if it s not to give us a basic sense of significance? We are important! We are immensely important to Him! Just allow Holy Spirit to minister a sense of significance to you out of this verse. 2

3 Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:29-30) If you want to get just a glimpse into how much God is involved in your life, read Psalm 139. It will blow your mind! God has had you in His heart and mind since He formed you in your mother s womb! Again, these just a couple of passages in the Bible that tells us how we are deeply loved by the Lord in Jesus Christ. God loves us unconditionally - and He is the only one who can love us this way. He is the only dependable source of security. Please hear me! Your spouse will let you down! They may not mean to do so, but they will. They cannot meet the deep need you have for security and significance. Spouses tend to be selfish at times. They tend to not be there when you need them. Sometimes they even leave you for good, either for another person or in death. As sinful, mostly inadequate human beings, spouses cannot be totally depended upon to meet our most basic needs. They will inevitably fail us! But not God! He created us, gifted us, and called us to serve Him. He loved us, came to die and rise again so that we might have eternal relationship with Him. In Him our basic significance and selfworth can be found. Friends, these truths can make an incredible impact on your home. If I know I am secure and significant already, whether or not I happen to feel it at any moment, then I am free to minister to my family without building up walls of protection to avoid being hurt. Nothing my family can do or say can destroy my security or my sense of significance if it is secure in Christ. That leads to Proposition #3: Our most basic responsibility in the Christian home is to become reenforcers of the security and significance that come from God. Once we believe, understand, and appropriate these truths, then we are able to reach out in love to our family. Listen carefully. While it is true that our basic needs for security and significance are met through our relationship with God, it is also true that God normally uses spouses and parents as His principal instruments to develop within each other a conscious awareness of unconditional love and personal worth. In most simple terms, God designed the home to be that institution wherein people can have their most basic needs met, and then be re-directed to God as the ultimate source. To know that God loves me and is there for me is tremendous, but we all like the comfort that only another human being can provide. I am reminded of a child who was frightened by the thunderstorm and called out to his father. Daddy, can I come get in bed with you and Mom? No, said the father. You are just fine. Besides, God is right there with you. Yes, I know, he replied, but I would rather have someone with skin on them! Isn t that the truth! And God knows that! So He has planned for the family to be that first source of security and significance that we experience. While marriage partners cannot add to the fact of one s security and significance, they can help create an environment where those needs are met. Parents provide safety and significance for their children, as they should. But the wise godly parent will use that platform to provide a foundation to teach their children that ultimately the source for those needs being met is in God! Unfortunately, many of us are not re-enforcers of this truth but rejecters of what God wants to do in our family s life. We are so wrapped up in our own feelings, needs, and interests, that we often don t even consider the needs of our family. By nature we are self-centered. We look out for number one first and foremost! So we must be trained and often reminded where we are to find our ultimate source of security and significance. This has been a major theme of my life because security and significance were in short supply in my early life. My biological father left us when I was only 18 months old. Mom was my source of 3

4 security and significance, but she was as broken as I was. She found her needs met in husbands quite a few of them. My adopted father was married to her longer than any of her other husbands, 10 years, and helped provide a sense of significance to me as well as security. But they had price tags on them. My significance was determined by my performance and fear of losing his acceptance was a constant concern. One day he walked out of my life, and within a short period of time so did my Mom. My source of security and significance evaporated. I was left to my own devices to meet those needs. When a person is not saved, or is young in the Lord, they meet their needs in their own power. The Bible calls that flesh. The only way I knew to gain significance and security was in my performance. If I was the best at what I did, if I did it better than most others, if I was superior then I could be accepted, loved, valued, and safe. That is a high price to pay, friends. It is a tightrope over a mile high chasm with no safety net. The stress I lived under was unbearable. I was slowly losing my battle and my soul. I could not perform high enough to keep all those I considered significant in my life happy and proud of me. I was failing and falling into a deep dark place. Then, God saved me and called me into ministry! What sick sense of humor was that? What place can you imagine that demands more excellence and grants so little mercy than in the area of ministry? I was doomed! But that is what drove me to learn the most valuable lesson of my life. I was correct in knowing my need for security and significance, but I was wrong in where I looked to find it. I didn t find it in my family. They had mostly abandoned me. I didn t find it in my church. They demanded the highest convictions and performance. I didn t find it within myself. All I had for myself was self-loathing. I didn t find it in relationships. Those were mostly based on how well I served others, or how well those people were meeting my needs. Where was I to have my needs for security and significance met? Without wanting to sound trite or giving and easy preacher-like answer I found my security and my self-worth in my relationship with Jesus Christ. He is the only One who can ever live up to the monstrous needs I have for significance and security. But once I found my security in Him, I wasn t tempted to find it in my job, or money, or power, or position, or in the right friends. I didn t have to find that security and significance in in a relationship with a woman, or sex, or having someone as my own. Once I found my significance in Him, I wasn t tempted to find it in being in love, or being the best, or pleasing everyone, or performing to the max. I was free! I was free! But hear me in two areas. First that freedom was not license. I was not free to lord my freedom over others, or be beyond the need for people. Secondly, that freedom called out the best in me. That security allowed me to venture into new areas without fear of being a failure. I may fail, but I would never be a failure! Why? I was safe and secure in Him. That freedom called out the best in me. That significance I found in how much I was loved by the Lord, and how He would never leave me or forsake me, in His patience and grace and mercy that significance I found freed me to be the best for Him! I could serve out of love and not out of fear! I could preach or teach or whatever as an expression of my love response to Him and not out of obligation. I could be the best husband and father I could be, knowing I would never be the best, and not fear being a failure. Do you see? When you find your security and significance in Christ, you are free indeed! Let me come back to where we started. - If it s true that a man s primary need is for significance, and this need is met ultimately through a growing relationship with Christ, God then uses the wife s submission to reinforce a man s significance. 4

5 - And, if it s true that a woman s primary need is for security, and God meets this need through a relationship with Himself, God then uses a husband s love to reinforce a wife s security. - And, if it s true that a child s primary need is for security and significance, and God meets these needs ultimately through a relationship with Himself, God then uses the parents to initially meet those needs in the home, and point those children to Him, the source of ultimate fulfillment. So, let s talk just a moment about where you are right now. Maybe you find yourself as I did, having a huge deficit when it comes to a sense of security and significance. Maybe you didn t have those needs met as a child. Maybe you did, but you don t have them met in your relationship now. Maybe you are looking into all sorts of sources to meet that hunger in your soul. Maybe you have tried many sources and found, as I did, that they are all artificial substitutes for what you are hungry for. They promise much but deliver very little. As lovingly as I can, may I direct you to the only source that will ever be able to meet what you most desperately need? Can I point you toward a personal relationship with Jesus Christ to meet your deepest needs for security and significance? Maybe you are a husband or a wife, and today you have learned how important it is for you to be used of God to meet those needs in the life of your spouse. Even if God is the ultimate source, you are the one with skin on them through which God can speak. Maybe you are a parent. I am sure you are trying the best you know how to meet the needs for security and significance in the lives of your children. But are you showing them your dependence on the Lord? Are you pointing them to the source for ultimate security and significance? Are you modeling dependence on God to meet your most basic needs? 5